The city has asked an independent group to determine whether proper procedures were followed when 465 HIV-positive children in foster care were put in clinical drug trials from 1988 to 2001, officials said yesterday.

The Administration for Children’s Services has contracted with the Vera Institute of Justice, a not-for-profit research organization, to examine whether the required parent or guardian consents were obtained, whether the medical criteria were met and whether ACS correctly monitored the situation.

Vera has also been asked to locate as many of the children as possible to ascertain their current medical conditions.

The study’s results are expected in three months. A panel of nationally recognized experts will then review the findings.

“There’s no litigation. There are no hearings. We’re doing this to set the record straight,” ACS spokeswoman Sharman Stein said.

Advocates have questioned why these kids – most of them black or Hispanic – were the ones subjected to the medical tests. Stein has pointed out that treatment back then was not as developed as it is today and that virtually every HIV-afflicted child in the United States was in some clinical trial.

Of the 13,927 kids under 13 diagnosed as HIV-positive between 1979 and 2003, 3,634 lived in the city, the Health Department said.

Nationally, 12,000 to 13,000 kids under 13 participated in pediatric-AIDS clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health between 1986 and the present.